PROBLEM

• It’s common for people to come to Jesus as a last resort
• It’s common for people to say they’d believe in Jesus if they could see a sign
• But would they believe in Jesus or in miracles? There is a difference.

GOD

• The royal official was used to getting his way
• But in his hopelessness, he turned to Jesus
• Many of us insist things happen our way
• But the royal official was a peace with Jesus’ way

APPLICATION

• Faith is not receiving what you want but accepting what God gives
• It is claiming what Jesus names
• It is trust without demanding a sign
• Believing that Jesus loves me enough to ______

VISION

• Faith is resting in the power of his word
• Whether I study or read at home, Jesus is with me
• By the Spirit and the word, we have all of Jesus there is to have
• Verse 50- believed the miracle, but it didn’t stop with there. Verse 53- believed in Jesus

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear

John 4:18
The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

• Some have an unsolvable problems
• Their security is being threatened 
• Things they never expected

Daily life

• Texas abortion pill ruling – taking sides
• Ukraine or Taiwan – World War III?
• Does anybody respect anybody anymore?

We all have a lot of the same questions

• Why can’t we live in peace?
• Why is there so much resistance?
• Ever feel like you don’t belong here?

Easter is about the past, present, and future

The WHY of Easter

• Problem with creation
• Solution to creation
• We were not made for this world

1 Corinthians 15: 35-44
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.
40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.
41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

Keep your eye on the future

Matthew 21 1-2: NIV
"Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Luke 19:37-38
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
“Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Luke 19:39-40
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”
“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

“Hosanna! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Psalms 118:25-29 (NIV)
O LORD, save us; O LORD, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you. The LORD is God, and he has made his light shine upon us. You are my God, and I will give you thanks; you are my God, and I will exalt you. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

Luke 19:41-44
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. 
They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Their expectation was that He came to rescue them from the temporary but he came to rescue them from the permanent 

Psalm 31:19 MSG
What a stack of blessing you have piled up for those who worship you, Ready and waiting for all who run to you to escape an unkind world.

8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

9 The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 

10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” 

14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Problems are real and God is able guide you past them

• The way we deal with difficulty is to find a distraction from it.  God’s way is the opposite.  Acknowledge that the enemy is great, but understand that God’s love is greater
• Both unbelievers and believers lack faith in God’s goodness.  Unbelievers walk away from God and believers worry
• The proof of God is not that problems disappear, but that God has kept you surrounded
• The servant thought he was surrounded by the enemy but the enemy was surrounded by God

What God sees is more real than what we see

• We don’t walk by sight, we walk by faith (2 Cor 5:7). To be at peace we have to remember the unseen realm
• We can’t visibly see angels, God, what he’s up to, or his plan. But when it seems he’s absent, is when He’s doing the most. Joseph & Dothan 
• What do you think of God vs what does God think of you? 
• Problems of adoption: parents + God

We can trust God’s love for us

• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Daniel 3). You may feel you’re in the fire but the good news is you’re not in there by yourself. The 4th man is there with you
• The goal of a lecture is information, of motivational speech is inspiration, and of a sermon is that you leave worshiping and the way you worship is you see God
• People need to see God, which leaves pastors in a dilemma, because no preacher can create spiritual sight

Starting out without God

• Elisha had followed the camp as a volunteer. The kings never cared to ask him about God. Now he has three kings waiting at his door.
• The Moabites were not the real enemy.  Their failure to seek God was
• One problem became two. That’s the reality. Need a spiritual clarification about the physical reality

Needing God’s help

• Worship music is to set the atmosphere for God to speak
• You can come here for the sermon but you don’t need a sermon, you need a word from the Lord
• The Holy Spirit is referred to as the life-giving fountain, and the water for the soul

Stepping out in faith

• If God is your partner, make your plans big.
• People burn plows and set out to live for God but then get stuck because they don’t think big enough and don’t start small enough
• God won’t trust you with a big dream if He can’t trust you to start small

Doing what God gives you to do

• Digging a ditch is creating space for God to fill
• Daily time with God, relationships, marriages, careers, ministries, every area of our lives
• “I forgive you” is a ditch. I’m going to be vulnerable, and ask that you fill up this space…

Receiving what God gives

• God wants us ready to catch the blessing
• We are not digging alone and it’s not in vain
• God wants us and our church full of empty trenches, ready to receive the water/ Holy Spirit

• Usually we are more familiar with someone’s victories than with their vulnerabilities
• Syria recently experienced a deadly earthquake

Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing. The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”

• Naaman represents everyone seeking God

As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”

• The king saw a fight, Elisha saw an opportunity
• We feel angry whenever life presents us with something we are not equipped for. (dad, bill/job, faith to believe)
• Most of us fight the opportunities God is actually sending us (I didn’t expect…)

When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.

• 2 most dangerous words between you and peace. (thank you, piano)
• Elisha didn’t run after him. He let God work through another
• He became angry because he didn’t go in. When I don’t go into the presence of God, when I don’t ask God, “What are you doing in this situation”? When I don’t seek the spirit of God to lead me.  If I would have taken one moment and said, “I don’t wanna fight about this. I don’t wanna be right. I wanna be healed. I don’t want to prove my own power. I wanna receive your power.

Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.

Luke 4:24, 27
“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown… And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

• When we are obeying God we don’t see the change. His skin didn’t heal with every dip. We need to have faith for the end.
• As long as we want to be in control, we’ll be angry.  That’s why we have the presence of God. This is the Jordan river where we can dip 7 times.  Isn’t it interesting that God’s greatest goal in Naaman’s life was not to heal his skin, but to produce faith in his heart.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for your work. Thank you for the story that comes to us after 1000s of years yet you use it by the Your Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts today. And to really make change in our lives. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would be the one that speaks to each person here today using your word, we pray that we would find in US receptive hearts and minds, anxious to be the people that you have called us to be anxious to increase our trust in You. May somebody here today Father, if not all of us, have our lives changed and inspired by the trust that we can have in you and the faithfulness that you show? And how anxious and how, how anxious and how and how you use miracles yet today in our lives, give us Lord the faith to see that in the faith to believe and faith to act and that In your name we pray. Amen. When I talk about Elijah, and Elijah, one of the things that It comes to my mind from my past was my son, he, when they would go to church, my boys, I would ask them, not when they went, they went to church every Sunday. They didn’t have a choice. I told my son one day I said, something like, you know, the only thing whatever keep you going from church as if you died? And then he said, Well, no, not really, because that’s when you do go to church. And I thought about this, right? Yeah. I didn’t go to church if you’re dead, too. So that’s true. You never stopped going to church. But he I asked her, Hey, what do you guys learn in a children’s church? And my son was all excited. He told me, they learned about Alicia. And Alicia was one of the girls in our church. And she was a great girl. You know, everybody liked Alicia and I thought, okay, you know, that’s nice. Did she come and share about her life or something? And so that’s, that’s the road I went down. I could never figure out in there. Tell me about, you know, Alicia did this Alicia, what on earth? And it wasn’t until later somebody said, I think he’s talking about Alicia. Oh, okay. I knew that I knew that. Of course. So yeah. It’s all about how you pronounced that name, isn’t it, how you get in there. But I this is a story that, that we’ve become very familiar with in our lives, if you’ve been around church, you’ve grown up or if you’ve come and started read your Bible, it’s, it’s a fascinating story. Because it’s, it’s what we all want to hear what we all want to see. And we can relate to name and from the point of, I feel like a name. I feel like somebody who has a little bit of a distance from God, I feel that I’m somebody who, who is just asking God to do things and I understand the frustration of when God doesn’t do that. And so here we have the story. It’s it’s it starts off right as we read with with naman, just great, powerful guy in government and, and everything’s going super well for him and just looks like a celebrity. He looks like, you know, the kind of life everybody would want to have. But he had a problem. And I think so often in our own lives, right? We look at people, and we see all the great things they’ve accomplished. But what we don’t see is their vulnerability, and they sure don’t show that. But the reality is, every human being has a vulnerability. Every human being has a weakness. We’re all struggling with different things in our lives and something that we have absolutely no control over. And that’s certainly what naman was dealing with in his life, he, he could look really good on one side, but on the other, if you’d look under the robes under the armor, you would see that no, you pretty much had a death sentence, there wasn’t anything really good. In fact, it was very devastating. He will soon be ostracized from his society, from his community. And so as high as he was, that’s about as low as he was just about to be and people are concerned. But there’s really nothing that you could really do until this little slave girl pipes up and says, you know, where you guys stole me from? I knew a man who could cure leprosy. And so they said, Well, let’s go find this God that you have. And so off they went, right. So they find Mr. Elisha here with firstly finding the king. And the king is absolutely scared to death about what are you talking about? You’re asking me to cure this man, you crazy. And I think all of us can see that and relate to that part of the story. On the sense of God gives us stuff that is beyond us to do, God will give us a situation you know, you always we always like to hear, you know, God will give you never give you more than you can bear, which is not true, at least right. And so here’s a situation where this man, he becomes very frustrated with that. And you and I become very frustrated with the same things too, when God puts something in our lap that we really don’t know how to deal with, when God gives us a big brings a big bill into our lives that we owe any mount an amount of money to, but at the same time, maybe we don’t have a job. And it’s like, Well, God, why are you giving me this if I don’t have that, to take care of. Sometimes it’s a family situation where we you know, we needed something from our past, a lesson that we would have learned in this situation. But maybe, you know, we didn’t have a great family life maybe growing up, we didn’t have an example of how that was made. We had just the opposite of that. Now, we’re trying to raise our own kids and we’re trying to raise our own family trying to be in a marriage. And we just don’t have an example to go from. We’re just winging it, and we’re just doing our very best and it just doesn’t always work out too well. And in this frustration, why am I being given more than I can bear Why am I giving more than what I was ready for and prepared for and it creates that that deep sense of anger that anxiety against eventually ultimately against God? We blame God God, why did you put me in this situation? Why? Why did it come around? out like this. And so the king Joshi looking at the situation he sees these just as fighting words, this guy’s trying to trigger me this guy’s trying to pick a fight a quarrel with me what oh, and I think when we become fearful like that man alive is we do see everything as a fight, everything has a battle, everything has a threat to our lives. When we get into that corner, we get into that edge, or we just feel people trying to push us just a little bit too far, the only way to respond is and in fighting is in overpowering. But then you don’t you don’t have the ability, you don’t have the fight, you don’t have the power, you don’t have the strength. And so you just stay ahead. And I think this is where this king was in a way that we can relate to him and understand him. But isn’t it interesting, the thing that the king saw as a thing that might do him under might kill him was the very opportunity that God was presenting to him. And how many of us have lived learned in our lives, that the things that we think are a threat to us things that we think are actually going to take us out are the very things that God is using to get us to the next place in life. The people that we think that we’ve ended up meeting and we don’t really know why we’ve met them, we’ve kind of missed the people that we had before. Fast forward a little bit. And those are the very people that give us life very people that redefined who our lives are the very people who all of a sudden contributed so much meaning to us and and really made our life fulfilling and meaningful. Sometimes we fight against what God gives us thinking that it’s here to kill us here to destroy us, when in fact what God is saying, No, I’m bringing this here for an opportunity for you as a chance for you. This is something I want to do new in your life. And so we see here with Joe ash, the example of the negativity of it, what not to do, and that’s to, to regret and to disagree and to feel like a victim of the whole thing. And then to come over and hellacious side and say, oh, oh, don’t worry about that. That’s not for you. That’s for me, send them over to me, I’ll take care of that. And all of a sudden, what what the king saw as a threat, Elisha saw as an opportunity as something that God was going to do something God was going to take care of. And you and me and my life in our lives, as we go through life. And as the problems begin to mount, regardless of what they are, we always somehow superimpose our negative doomsday scenario on them, when in reality, God is bringing his perspective into it. And and it’s, it’s not so not more complicated than just stepping over it and asking, instead of what is this problem doing to me, but instead asking God, what do you have for me? How are you leading me through this? How will all of this work into your plan?

We all know these verses bow, all things work together for good. Those who love the Lord are called according to His purpose. We love those verses, but we often forget them. We think they apply to other people or somebody else needs help will quote them for somebody else. But they’re not always for somebody else. 100% of the time, they’re for us. And it’s our trust that God knows what he’s doing. And God is taking care of us. And even though some things go bump, some things are are chaotic. That just means that’s our own perspective of if we knew what God was doing, we’d be grateful for the changes that are coming along our way. I couldn’t help but think about Silicon Valley Bank, and how that overnight Madeleine, what happened there, all of a sudden, this bank goes out. And everybody’s scrambling and they talk about how many people have a lot of money in this bank and far beyond what the FDIC insures and and I’m thinking boy, there must be a lot of desperation. Right now around here and our neighbors I personally don’t know anybody connected the bank, but MIT, perhaps you guys do prep guys know several. Regardless, it’s things like these that we see. They’re not here to destroy us, even though this is what man intends, and he’s what governments ended up doing to themselves one way or the other. The big picture here is God is not a victim of what mankind does, what society does what God or what governments do. God is never the victim of the decisions of other people. God always ensures your safety always ensures your goodness. And God regardless, always has a plan. Sometimes it’s to strengthen you. Sometimes it’s to encourage you, to embolden you. Sometimes it’s to teach you faith in these times. Regardless of what happens. I’ve always seen people who will turn to God always walk out of these things and say, wow, look what man tried to do to me, but look how God took care of me. I’m so grateful for the way the Lord was able to take care of my life through this one way or the other. It always ends up like that. She’s like, everybody has a different story. But ultimately every year She who knows the Lord and puts her trust in God comes out of it with the same story. Look how good God was to me, I sure am glad that I trusted in him and put my faith in Him. And so I say that to encourage you to, to kind of be on the front side of end of these things when these things come out of the blue and they hit us really hard. Next thing in the story that I want to bring up I think super interesting is, is a name is reaction to Alicia. Now Nate of Aisha, he never left his room, he never left his house. And he just sent a message out to naman to go and dip seven times into the Jordan River. And a naman was deeply offended by this. He says, doesn’t he know how important I am? Doesn’t he realize what a privilege it is for him that I have come to his door? The least he could do be to come out and you know, bring his maracas and, you know, or bring up you know, some special robe or something like that, and dance around me and make some noise and at least he could do something according you know, to what I might be expecting. So he’s very disappointed and and he very much has this attitude of, you know, what if he’s, if he’s going to disrespect me so much as to not even come out and say, Hello, then you know what, I think I’d rather have this lepers I’d rather have my arm fall off on my way home, then have to deal with somebody just so disrespectful like this guy is. And I think there’s two words in that verse I want to bring up and it’s what naming says, I thought, when I read that verse, I read it again. And I read it again. And I read it again. I thought, I thought and I thought about that. I thought about that I thought, you know, those little little words, those two little words, I thought those little words have gotten me into so much trouble. Because I contrast what I expected with what God was doing. And I put my priority on what I expected and what I thought would be happening. And I get into that mindset of but I but I will What about me or I thought this I thought that and what does that do? That just separates you that creates a a gulf between you and God because what you are thinking and what you are intending and what what you feel is the right way, honestly, is many times as light years away for what God’s trying to do what God is trying to say what God’s trying to bring out in your life. And yet very rarely do we ever ask ourselves God, what is it that you’re saying? God what is that you’re planning? What is the you’re doing? God? What is it that you’re thinking? What is that you’re thinking? And so Elijah here so naman is very upset with Alicia and he takes off he says I’m done with this. I’m not going to pay more attention. This idiot. I drove all the way down here and I brought all these gifts for him and nothing. What a waste of time. That is an off he goes. And what does Alicia do? Alicia says oh no. Right and he puts his tennis shoes on he starts running after name name and Noemi? No, you misunderstood me no one more thing, right? No, he doesn’t do that at all right? That’s what I would have done. But that’s not what Alicia does is okay. Ad O’s. Goodbye. Have a good time. See you later. Maybe Alicia just lets it go. And I’m thinking what kind of faith does Alicia have to think that it was all up to names? It was all up to what naman decided to do, I would think of why shouldn’t be saying oh, maybe I didn’t do this right. Maybe if I was supposed to cure him of his leprosy, I should have been a little nicer. Maybe I should have kept him around a little bit or said something that should have come out, you know, and done a little ritual around him. But no, he is so confident in what God is doing so confident that he says, Okay, I’m just here to do what God’s given me to do. And that’s it. This is how it’s all supposed to work out and let it work out. God was still do what God is here to do. And he just lets him go. And what eventually happens as a result of that name and servants come around and they say, Mr. naman, let’s think about this a little bit. We’ve come so far, you’ve paid so much money, right? And what happens is, is that God was not only expecting Alicia to do all the work in this thing. God had other people at work in this situation. Did Alicia know about name and servants? Did he know perhaps that they would be encouraging him to No, not at all. But what Elijah had was the confidence that God had it all taken care of, that he only needed to do what he needed to do, and that God would do everything else? Wouldn’t a wonderful amount of faith that that is in any one of our lives, so that we Yes, I trust God’s going to take care of this. I trust what God has given me to do I have done okay, things aren’t going the way I thought they would go, you know, things aren’t going. But it doesn’t matter because it’s not about what I do. It’s only about what God decides it was only about what God sees fit to happen. And that is so often in our lives, we have time and time again, we’ll become more frustrated because things aren’t going the way I thought they were. But even in those moments, Elijah persists. And even though he doesn’t have any idea, he soon learns that God has many other people at work in this situation. When I talk to people about devastating things that happen in their lives, one of the things I assume notice, and if I wasn’t talking to you, it’d be about me, certainly, somebody would help me by saying this very same thing. What I soon noticed help people is that, very often, the person who is suffering feels very alone feels that nothing else is happening, that they are 100%, responsible for what is going to happen, or it all the weight is on them. And wouldn’t it be nice if God would lift some of the weight here a little bit. But what I’ve learned is that there’s always other people involved, people, perhaps, you will never learn people’s names and faces you’ve never seen perhaps never will, perhaps this will be occasion where you will meet them. But God is never limited at all, even if it is to just you, he’s never limited to just you. He doesn’t ask you to do something all by yourself, and think that you are going to bear the weight of seeing this whole thing come to completion. It’s never like that with God. God is always working in a big family, God is always working with all of his children, God is always working in a big picture, to come and meet the needs of that we have to fulfill the purpose that he has, we are never alone, and we are doing what God is leading us to do. Sometimes people come up to a situation and though they will need something to be done, perhaps in a bureaucracy or something like that. But yet, in the big picture, what happens, God was already taken care of all those situations. A story that comes to mind that are very grateful for is my wife, ami, when she graduated from college, she had a visa, she’s trying to fill out a visa to stay in the United States, but only for so long. And and then she had to go back to the Philippines and most of us are very aware of how the situation, situation to be the nicest way to put it. Goodness absolute nightmare happens for so many people, she got stuck in that situation where she was not going to be able to stay in the United States, but yet there was really nowhere to for her to go back home to either those doors Takata closed, so she just kind of stuck in this situation. And all of us would kind of think, yeah, well, what

are you going to do? Now? You know, where are you going to find a lawyer to do this, where you gonna find lawyer to do that. And in the midst of all that she graduated, she passed her test to be an RN, but she couldn’t get a job. Because she was you know, it wasn’t legal to be able to do that. And there was a couple that out of the blue for somebody who knows, somebody said, you know, I do know somebody who was looking for some health care for their mother, a personal health care. And so they offered that job to AMI, and I said, yeah, thank you very much. And so he lived with this lady, and she took good care of her. And during the course of events, the lady had a heart attack. And AMI saved her life from that. Unbeknownst to AMI, that there was this lady’s son was the mayor of the city. And when AMI saved the mother’s life after a heart attack, the son took a little bit more gratitude for Ami. And he talked to her found out what our situation was. And he said, You know, I know some people done immigration, let me see what I can do. And what happened was back in the days when people we had paperwork, he took the paperwork, she went from the from the very last place in the line and put it right through. And in a very short amount of time, she got a letter saying here, here’s your green card, you can go to work. And that, to me is a reminder constantly, that is never just us that are doing all of the work. It’s never just up to us what we want to see happen. God is always working with people who are cooperating with his will far beyond what you and I would be able to do far beyond. So when we get discouraged remember, it’s not just you it’s not all up to you God has got other people hard at work to see His purpose and His plan to come around and so often is to bless us in our own lives fulfill the purpose that He has for us in that all naman needed to do was to what? Get in the water, just get in the water. Get in that’s all you got to do name and just get in the water. How many times have I come to a moment where I just didn’t get in the water. I knew what God told me to do. But I just kind of went on and usually what he tells me to do is to rest I trust in Him to rely on Him and to be confident in him and, and I don’t. If I just get into the water, I would have been okay. If I would have just gone to the Lord beforehand and say, God, what about what about your perspective on this? What are you looking to do in this situation? What is the solution that you want to bring about God? How about if I if I would just say, God, I, I’ve done everything I can do. I have fought as hard as I can fight. I have brought all the energy to this that I can and, and I just can’t do it anyway. I just don’t have it in me anymore. And wonder if God is saying, naman? Yeah, you’ve come up with all these great reasons why you shouldn’t dip in the water, but I thought you came here to be healed. And so often in my life, that’s exactly what God says to me. Hey, okay, so you’re working so hard to work on all this, I thought you came to me to ask for America, I thought he came to me to ask what I would do in this situation. Let’s just do what I’ve asked you to do? It would. Let’s just start with that. You know, honestly, that’s all I want to hear. It’s all I really need to hear. And here we are in church today in this, this is a very real coming into God’s presence moment. This is a very time where where we are hearing God, and God is telling us what he would like to have done. This is the moment where we can say God, are you going to do what you want to do? Or are you going to be frustrated with me trying to find reasons to not trust you to not rely upon you to do it? At some point we got can come to us and and he can say instead of asking or seeking or exercising your own strength and power? How about you just rely upon me a little bit? How about you put your faith in me and let me come through for you. Jesus talked about name and once it was when he had just started his ministry and announced himself there and in the synagogue and, and he’s read there out of Isaiah 61, what what God wanted to do with him, and then he came back from that to say, you know, I can’t do a lot of miracles among you people, because you guys don’t believe I can do anything. You know, A prophet is never honored in His own hometown. So it’s too bad. And he referred to Elijah, he said, you know, during Elijah’s time, there were things that a lot of people needed help with. But it was only the person who had faith that received the help. And then this is when he talks about naming. He says a name it. There were a lot of people in Israel at that time who had leprosy. But there was only one who was cleansed. And one who wasn’t even an Israelite the most unlikely one to have faith. He’s the one that I claim that God cleansed and God helped. So for you and for me, it really is about are we going to be that person that trust in God unequivocally? Are we going to be that one puts our confidence in what God is doing and not in what we see other people doing or not doing? Or or if they’re measuring up a good enough or not enough and what they’re doing know? What is God doing? What is God doing? Can we trust God to lead this thing through? When naman went down into the water, it came up out of the first time. Was he cured anymore? No, not at all. It would have been nice, right? If name would have dipped down and come up out? Oh, look at this look a little healthier. I better dip one more time. Right? And he dips one more time. Oh, look at this is this is going well. But it wasn’t that at all. naman was told to dip seven times. And he’s down six times. And then it was only on the seventh that he came back up. And he was clean, he was cured. I think all this reminds us that sometimes change or solutions or answers are very slow and coming. Not because God but because God is bringing about his solution in his time and in his way. And for a lot of us, it’s asking, Are you going to dip six times? Or are you going to go ahead and dip seven times? Are you going to go all the way with the Lord? Are you just going to kind of get fed up and say, I didn’t get what I wanted. Until even until now. So I’m going to go elsewhere? How many times have all of us done that in our own lives? Where we’ve asked God to do something, and whether or not it gets answered whether or not gets fulfilled or healed or the problem is solved. We measure God’s goodness and God’s faithfulness. And that becomes the purpose of our relationship with God. Is this thing going to resolve itself or not? Is God actually going to do his job or not? When God is calling you and me to say at some point, it’s not about the healing. At some point. It’s not about the solution. At some point, it’s about my relationship with God. Am I going to continue being faithful with God? Am I gonna have my confidence in the Regardless, and that’s the transformation that had to happen in namens. Heart, he had to go from the point where he realized God wasn’t as interested in his healing, as he was, as God was interested in him having faith. And if you continue to read past verse 14, where we were, you’ll soon see that it was exactly that, that name and received faith that he learned who God was. And he wanted to be a follower of God, the One True God, even after he went back home, and at some point, you and I need to have that transition in our lives, we get so busy saying, Lord, this is my problem. I know you can solve it, why don’t you solve it? God is because I’m not doing something what is it’s all about the problem. It’s all about the problem. When in reality, for all of life for all of eternity, it’s never about the problem. It’s always about our relationship with God. And if you are right in a relationship with God, and if you honor God for who God is, and if you enjoy the love that God has for you, regardless of what is happening in circumstances, those do not measure those do not limit those do not say anything about the goodness and faithfulness of God in your life. What says that about the goodness and faithfulness of God in your life is his presence with you and his voice to you, and the embrace that he has in a way he walks with you? Sometimes God does amazing miracles in your life, I’d say more than any of us would expect. I would say what Jesus said about name and being, there was many who needed a miracle, but only one received it the one who had faith, I would say Jesus could say that anywhere in the world today. A lot of us need a miracle. But there’s only one person who has faith out of everybody. And I think that comes to us today to say, Am I that person? Am I the one who has faith in God? Am I the one who believes in the goodness of God, am I the one who believes that God will take care of me that God will take care of my loved ones that God will have? Walk with me through this?

Watch God, move, gosh, God work, and know that the amount of little miracles that happen in your life doesn’t even begin to compare to the change in your heart that happens when you find out who God really is, and how much God really loves you. All of a sudden, that surpasses that. And also you begin to walk and you live with God, and somebody who God is able to speak to, and someone who God is able to direct, just like Alicia was about Elijah receiving a blessing. And at some point in our own lives, it’s about how we are able to be a blessing to others because of our connection with God. Let’s not lose that. Let’s not just be people who say okay, is everything right with me? Am I okay? Let’s instead let’s move beyond that. Let’s say, let’s be about God, let my life reflect my my life, express the love of God and the peace of God to other people. Let God use me the way he desires to use me that I might be a blessing to other people may I might be used by God to build the faith of other people to May God be so real to me and so alive in me that I am able to bless others others are able to see God in me. That’s where God wants to take us I believe that’s the true story of, of naman and his uncle. And that lesson that He has for us, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the stay that we’ve had to, to open up your word and to read of this ancient story and to see the truth of it. And Lord, we pray that you would find people here today who perhaps they are obsessed about a problem assessed about a need. Heavenly Father, I pray that they will be able to see your your opening brace to them and your welcoming of them in your heart, your life. And that they would have the confidence that you are taking care that you’re doing far more than what their own eyes are able to see that you always prove yourself to be faithful and good, that you are loving. And only if I pray that we put our trust and our confidence in you. But even more than that, Lord, that we would fill our lives with your presence, that we would enjoy you for who you are. Not for only what you do learn but for how much you love us. Now you should include us in your plan, and how we are part of your family for all of eternity. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE WHAT YOU REALLY WANT, GOD IS WHAT YOU REALLY NEED. 

2 Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all...” 

STOP WAITING FOR WHAT YOU WANT AND START WORKING WITH WHAT YOU HAVE. 

2 Kings 4:2
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.” 

OFFER GOD WHAT YOU HAVE AND TRUST HIM TO GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED.

2 Kings 4:3-7
3 Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. 4 Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.” 5 She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”

2 Corinthians 4:7
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay...

hey guys how are you this morning
good alright I’m just making sure you still out there it’s good to see you guys glad to be with you this morning hey it’s March already it’s hard to believe that it’s March but it is here and it feels like a year just started like last week doesn’t it and many of us are like in this first quarter of the Year already and many of us were like worn out already how many of you would just maybe in a moment of honesty say I was kind of hoping that this year would start out a little differently that has and if I’m being really honest I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment kind of overwhelmed at the beginning of the year hear my prayer for for myself for you this morning is that this message is really good at minister to you and I feel like it’s really going to minister to you if you feel overwhelmed you feel like you don’t have enough time you don’t have what you need and we’re going to look at an Old Testament story as Pastor Greg said we’re in a new series on Elisha
I know you don’t study Elisha all the time but he’s an old testament prophet and his life is kind of a symbol to us of the presents in the power of God and we really believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament all of it is about Jesus and we’re going to study his life and it has some implications for our modern-day live in Pursuit with Jesus and that’s why I did this really crazy story and you’re going to see it’s really short story so we’re going to like we’re going to read some things in here that I really feel are going to be really applicable to your Lodge. Into it here it says the wife of a man from the company of prophets cried out to Elisha so in other words there were a bunch of like prophets that would travel together and ministers together and one of them died and his wife is coming to Elisha and she says your servant my husband is dead and you know that he revered the Lord’s but now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his sleigh
Elisha replied to her how how can I help you tell me what what do you have in your house your servant has nothing she says nothing there at all except for a small jar of olive oil to the list talk about these verses real quick don’t even know her name right we just know that she was the Widow of a prophet that happened to travel around and as a lot of people in Jewish tradition actually feel like this woman is actually if you’ve ever heard of Obadiah Obadiah this may have been obadiah’s wife and if that was the case over. It was really famous for supporting about 50 other prophets and pastors and so if that was him she very likely would have been financially stuck even if that wasn’t the life of a prophet they were constantly on the Run constantly trying to like make ends meet so either way this this woman is in kind of in Dire Straits here
and so quite honestly it’s it’s not hard for us to route to imagine why she’s in such a place and back in that time you could see the part of the story is the reason she’s upset is there somebody there her husband owed money to and then sew in but he died he’s not going to pay me so I’m going to take your two sons as slaves as payment for what your husband over there but that was actually a very common practice until you could either pay off the debt or whatever so she is is freaking out and so she is grieving the loss of her husband her bills are piled up she’s probably early thirties she’s a woman in this culture so basically she’s on employable unless there’s some kind of like a miracle like she’s at the end of her rope and she’s a really really devastating place and I don’t know I’m probably at this point in your life you probably had a moment similar to this world like if God doesn’t come through if there’s not some kind of Miracle here I really really don’t know how we’re going to make it through this and that’s where she
and so this is just too mean to be really clear to paint a bigger picture here this is not one of those like those things that we all complain about that are just like modern conveniences but we like to pretend like it’s the end of the world that you know like all my GPS took me to the wrong location again I guess where the switch to Apple Maps or Google Maps or Waze or which one this month right or like one of them is menu the course there’s none available tonight or I asked for my side drawer my salad dressing on the side and they mixed it in like you know it’s the end of the world and this is not the kind of problems she was having entry-level problems she was on graduate-level problems and the reality is and in a crowd this size many of us are carrying some graduate-level problems right here right in this room, view your your marriage has been barely hanging on some of you someone you loved betrayed you or your processing through some kind of trauma or you have a child that’s going the wrong way or there’s
somebody in your life you can see that they’re heading in the wrong direction and it’s it’s agonizing maybe you’re in so much Financial stress this suffocating and you don’t know how you’re going to get out of it or maybe there’s a medical problem that you were loved one is facing and unless there is some kind of Miracle you don’t know what you’re going to do there are graduate-level problems and in your life and if you are insignificant need today I just want to really really encourage you that the key fought for this message that we’re about to get to hear then I hope it blesses you this has been blessed me this week is that when you don’t have what you really want God is what you really need when you don’t have what you really want God is what you really need and in other words that emptiness that you feel that longing that you feel it really really is the situation were only God can fill that longing for so let’s unpack the story
You’re Going to see this this principle illustrate a little bit little bit more so how does Elisha respond when he when she you know she asked was to help me you know my husband is died you know that he loved you like help me out what does he say like what that’s not my problem that stinks stinks to be you you know good luck with that you do you know not what is he say he says how can I help you how can I help me tell me what do you have in your house and your servant has look what she says nothing there at all
isn’t it interesting that when you’re hurting when you’re lacking all you can see is what you don’t have and that’s not just her in the story we do the same thing when you’re hurting when you’re lacking all you can see is what you don’t have and hopefully this will speak to somebody who’s hurting right now because all of us when we get down and we get depressed all we can see is what we don’t have right I don’t have enough money to to make it through this I was think of Dumb and Dumber right like we don’t have enough money to eat
turn off money that’s fully bright like some of us get their emotionally right I don’t I don’t have a nice house so I can’t do what God’s telling me to do right or even when you finally do get a house like I wish it was nicer house ready or are we don’t have friends around us that love us or I don’t have maybe some some of you that are single today maybe like I don’t have a spouse’s like that my life doesn’t have as much meaning as it could that war we’ve all done this right we all of us have enough clothes in our culture to like clothing entire African village right but we walk into our closet right and we all say I have helped me out I have nothing to wear right we’ve all done that when we were in the first place of hurting or lacking all we can see is when we don’t have and that is the exact time we’ve got to shift our focus and we can focus on what we don’t have it so when you don’t have what you really want God is what you really need and so the second one to this is stop this is what were the store
going to shift it stop waiting for what you want and start working with what you have
let me see that again. Waiting for what you want and start working with what you have this is a principle of like this could easily be transferable if you are a parent you are an entrepreneur a lot of us wait to take action until the conditions feel right like for her she knows she’s in a terrible situation she didn’t waste he was taking action on what she had it with her and so that’s a principled it’s transferable for us to a lot of us we get into this like I’m just going to wait I’m waiting and waiting and then we use the excuse I’m I’m waiting on the Lord right but the thing is is that we are refusing to take action and others just a principal of like imperfect action Trump’s Perfection right have you heard that and so a lot of us we’ve just got to move forward with what we have until look what she says she said your servant has nothing there at all and then she remembers except a small jar of olive oil I have nothing at all except for this one
and then we don’t have a context for for olive oil right like all like I was reading this in like so is it like version extra virgin I like I don’t know I mean like that’s about the end of our olive oil knowledge in our culture you do so but it was a big deal because olive oil you could cook with it obviously that’s what we use it for mostly but you could burn it and lamps they use it as medicine they use it as moisturizer they do it would make leather pliable and keep your tools and weapons from rusting it was something that you use in a religious practice for anointing or it was one of the I described offerings of is acceptable to bring to God at that time there was a lot of uses to it and the only a modern-day equivalent that I could think of that would maybe fit our understanding of this it was like I was trying to think of like an Amazon gift card okay let’s say it cuz if you had a $10,000 Amazon gift card you can like start a whole new life somewhere right and so
that’s kind of what she had but the problem was she didn’t have much on her gift card she had like three bucks and like great that’s going to help a lot so she had this really really valuable thing but not a lot of it okay so so she only had a very very small amount she said just a small jar of whale oil and we serve a God is you see is step into the story we serve a God who specializes in taking something very small and making it significant
and maybe you’ve experienced that in your own life but there are example after example and scripture that illustrates this Forest just real quickly like we’ve all heard the story probably of the Five Loaves and the two fish that fed thousands of people right God takes us at one small Stone in the hands of a child and if it’s a giant and freezing Nation even Jesus himself said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can move a mountain or God Specializes in taking the small and seemingly insignificant in your life and turning it into something significant and there’s a lot of us in this room that would say I if I’m being really honest I’m not only my tire not only am I overwhelmed I’m being a hundred percent transparent I’m probably locking some faith that this season of My Life
I’m really liking some faced and I come here and we sing the songs and do all the things but when I leave here I’m not really sure that God’s going to come through for me
and I just want to encourage you in that shouldn’t be a guilt thing but it should be just a reminder for you if faith is trusting in what you can’t see it’s not like a when you play the lottery in like how I hope my numbers come up and gods can answer my prayer it it’s not a blind hope it’s a trust and who God is and his character and his ability to come through for you and so today I hope that this story in Courage is your face the trust him with the small things in your life that feel and seem insignificant and know that he wants to do something incredible in that so it goes on it says this is an important part of the story he says I’m trying to help her what do you have in your house what do you have in your house cuz earlier in scripture God ask Moses if you remember the story he asked me what do you have in your hand
so we asked her what do you have in your house what do you already have it is not good that you didn’t even ask her like what do you want or what do you need he asked her what do you already have what do you already have and for a lot of us we’ve got to stop waiting for what we want and start working with what God has already given us in our lives and that’s how he operates and you ever have those moments where you just like you have movie of a moment of introspection and you’re thinking like okay how I’m this some this amount of years old where is my life going like what am I doing with my life how you ever have those moments the passwords have those moments 2
and like what do you want me to do with my life all those things and I was praying about this recently and I felt like God was telling me you’re doing exactly what I want you to do right now
I just need you to enjoy it a little bit more instead of worrying all the time
and I feel like that’s a message for for somebody else here today to you’re doing exactly what God wants you to do right now it just needs you to enjoy the journey a little bit more because he’s already giving you everything that you need to accomplish everything that he is calling you to do that’s how he works that’s how it works and so he says no no no like you know a lot of us will say I like what if I look at what I have if you’re asking me to look at what I have what’s in your hand I don’t have a whole lot right so we got to like shift our mindset to see what God is already placed in our hands what he’s already placing our lives in the the the Temptation for us is going to be like what I wished I had something more significant in my hand so I could do something more significant for God’s kingdom and for my life and for my family right we all we all get there all we can look at it as what we don’t have right I wish I was more of an upfront person
but I’m kind of more behind-the-scenes person are wish I was more charismatic to be a better leader and to start a company and do all the things and then sell it and make millions of dollars whatever the dream is there but God is already given you everything that you need to accomplish what he’s calling us to do and furthermore honestly it’s the behind-the-scenes people that are most valuable in the in the kingdom of God and how do I don’t know. It’s because Jesus says it that your servant the servant is the greatest in the kingdom of God and so if you feel like I’m just a behind-the-scenes person at all the things that I do or cut nobody else kind of notices our seas I want to know I want you to know today that you are significant your significant and what God has called you to do and who you are and the size of your assignment like meeting your job or your that you calling or whatever the size of your assignment doesn’t always equal the amount of impact that you have because a lot of times most the time we’re looking at our lives through a human set of lens
lens that that we all have it in our culture unless you were like famous you have a lot of followers on Instagram or Tik-Tok or whatever like you’re not making a difference right but that’s not the way that the kingdom of God worst some of you are making a huge contribution just by being a good mom or dad right now
the season of life that you’re in right now won’t always be like that but you’re making a huge contribution just be by being a great mom or dad or helping take care of an elderly parent or being that person of peace in your workplace you know what it’s like that crazy office that is feel or even on Zoom you like the one person of reason on that call you know like that’s that is your role right now or provide just simply providing for your family or we don’t ever talk about this part maybe you’re that one person in your family that keeps your family coming to church like if you weren’t there or you were sick like we’re not going to that one person that keeps your family coming to church and interested in the things of God
answer the second thought they will learn from this amazing story is this offer what offer God what you have and trust him to give you what you need
that’s that’s all it were required to do is to offer God what we have and basically leave the results up to him and that’s really really hard for us it’s easy to stay up here in a little bullet point it is really really hard for us because all of us are control freaks all of us we all like to control things right and I would have you raise your hand if you’re a control freak there’s that there’s a joke about it like as if your control-freak raise your hand right if anybody else has submitted you were tempted in that moment to raise the persons hand next to you right then you’re a control freak right that’s the joke right that’s where we all live so giving God doing my little part and then like releasing the results up to God that doesn’t feel good to us because we love being in control and so the story continues he says this he says go around and ask all of your neighbors for empty jars and then get some empty jars don’t ask for just a few basically asked for as many as you can find empty jars and then
inside and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour oil that thing that is the most valuable to you the only thing you have left in your house that out for that out into all the drawer all the jars as each is filled then put it but each one inside
what’s going on here she’s just getting a bunch of different containers right and then this is kind of like a little Nuance in scripture this was like a private private Miracle this is not like Dungy he could have easily said take your most valuable thing go to the square and pour the oil out in front of everyone so that everyone will believe like know this is like go to your house shut the door this is God providing for you and your family this is a moment between you and him and sometimes that the Miracles were were like that and so what he’s asking you to do is put your trust in God with the most valuable thing that she has
it’s really hard in a culture like we have or we have so much in affluence and things of value I wonder what you would say just maybe is a rhetorical question what you would say the most valuable thing that you have is beside your family cuz that’s where you’ll go and like check done like but really think about what’s the most valuable thing that you that you have and then got asking God coming in asking it I need you to pour that out I need you to pour that out and but it’s about trust and then basically he’s saying go ahead and pull that thing out and keep pouring and keep pouring and there’s basically he’s telling her there’s to be a miracle and as it fills up just set it aside and so she when she had the faith here’s the point for us when she had the faith to offer what was most valuable to her that’s when the miracle happened and she kept pouring and pouring and that’s what happened to the first five so she left him and shut the door behind her and her sons and then they brought the jars to her
I just kept pouring and pouring it says and then when the jars were fooled just said to her son bring me another one but he replied there is not a jar left and then the oil stopped flowing
it was a ridiculous request of Elijah to ask her to pour out the most valuable thing that she had and we already discussed she didn’t have much of it so asking her to pour out this place thing of value was a major trust for her in God’s ability to come through for her and it takes Faith because often we don’t feel like we have enough that’s the issue if we had plenty like we have poured out all day but when you feel like art when you already said I don’t feel like I have enough like we said in the beginning I don’t have enough time I don’t have enough energy we don’t have enough money to eat we don’t have enough money to sleep right when it when you get into that mode you already feel like I don’t have enough and then God’s asking me to pour that thing out and when’s that happens it’s because he is trying to bless you it is for your good it’s not to shame you is not to punish you it’s for your good and look what he says to her I said get a bunch of jars and notice he didn’t say
I want you to get a bunch of jars of this color or this size or this shape just get as many as you can I don’t care if it’s a milk jug a peanut butter jar a little like butter tub it does not matter a bowl get anything that you can get he just needs it to be empty it just needs it to be empty that was the only requirement
and how does this apply to us and 2nd Corinthians there’s a little verse in there and 2nd Corinthians 4:7 that says but we have this treasure which is Christ inside of Jars of Clay and that’s awesome that’s what he’s referring to we are the Jars of Clay we are worthy of the vessel and so what is that referring to its just saying that for us we got this amazing treasure inside of ourselves and what is God looking for from us
he’s looking for us to empty our own jars when when you guys came in this morning you should have been given a little bucket did you guys get a little buckets yes okay if you did not get one but please raise your hand and we’ll make sure we did bring you one down I loved it for this moment just to take out you’re a little bucket right now and this is just a reminder of two things you can put on your desk or on a shelf somewhere but this week I know it’s many of you won’t make it out of your car but on the on the way home love for you just to consider as you look at this little jar to realize the God wants to feel you God wants to fill your empty bucket but they’re there’s that kind of a catch to it right the way the physics works is if there’s already something in there we can’t pour any anyting else into it right and so we’re going to have just I just a moment of prayer just for you to empty yourself
and in this moment I just want to tell you you’re going to empty this if you’re going to have to hear yourself and just a moment and what does that mean that means coming before God and praying and asking him is there anything in my mind is there anything in my life that you want me to get rid of that you want me to just cast out of my mind and just get rid of God and ended up your prayer could be God just empty me of my guilt empty me of my shame Empty Me of of my last of my anger of my greed whatever it is that God wants to just get rid of it and here’s the thing we’re going to have this moment and my real sincere prayer is that God will come and fill you in the thing about oil is it is always been a symbol of the Holy Spirit to my my prayer it it just a moment here is that God would come with the Holy Spirit and unfortunately and tell Christ comes back tomorrow you’re going to have to go on empty
I think again we’re going to have this moment where you going to empty yourself but it’s a continual process and continual dying of self to become more and more like Jesus and your every day you’re going to have to empty yourself out of that bucket and allow the Holy Spirit to come in to fill you so I’d love to just invite you to stay close your eyes
I’m just going to lead you and in a little prayer
and then we’ll worship together
so if you if you have your little bucket I love for you just to hold it right now and just if there’s no magic to this or anything but it it’s just a symbol
the bucket that you hold is disassembled
and I love that it’s actually small because it’s a great reminder that God can do a lot with very little
maybe you feel like your life is very small right now
if you feel like you’re working
and nobody can see it you’re working an insignificant right now or if you going to grow up around the Bible you feel like you’re in the desert right now
but God sees you God Specializes at taking the small and making a significant the other thing this is a reminder for it’s just emptying your bucket so that God can fill you as well
so just for a second I would just love to invite you right now and just in the quietness of your own mind
just to ask him
what is in my bucket that you want me to pour out
I could be your anxiety
where’s I said earlier worried
did you spend a moment and ask him
consider your life
maybe you’re trying to hold onto control in an area that you have no business trying to control
I’m just as you are pouring out in your mind whatever you’re pouring out and offering back to him I just left for you to just imagine pouring that whatever that is that bucket in your hand there whatever it is you’re giving into the hand of Christ just give whatever that is
your sadness
your depression or anxiety your hurts
pour that into Loving Hands of Christ
in response to that with an empty bucket of love to ask you to stand with me and Unholy spirit will you come now and you will you fill us fill this church God fill our hearts Our Lives the way that we think the way that we act the way that we respond got will you give us power you tell us some scripture that we have the same power inside of us the rose Christ from the dead God will you help us to move and act in power you’ve given us spiritual gifts you’ve caught us to lead to teach to prophesy to evangelize God to work in your spirit God will you help each one of us hear your children will you help us to experience your your spirit fill this up Phyllis up fill this place up we ask these things in your name

• Nursing home illustration. It’s a common thing to be in the same place/mindset for many decades because we trusted ourselves more than God
• We want to hold onto the familiar, the plow, because that is what we’ve always known. But if God is going to move you, it’s going to require you to give up some things
• We love things that are about us

GOD – a quick yes

1 Kings 19:19-21
So Elijah went from there and found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”
So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.

• God calls us when we don’t think we are ready. Moses> bush, David>shepherd, Nehemiah>cupbearer, Peter>fishing, Matthew>tax collecting, Elisha>plowing

APPLICATION

• Ready to go Elisha’s response was immediate, showing that he was not only internally and spiritually prepared, but also that he was all in.  He didn’t need 24 hours to think it over.
• Ready to change “Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant” -1 Kings 19:21. The test for Elisha was if he was prepared to take a subservient role. To become a servant, subjecting himself to the will of another.  To place himself at the disposal of another, ready to take orders from him, ready to promote his  interests. To give the best of what he has to the one he serves
• Ready for the season God is working in every season of our lives, there’s not one thing you’re doing right now that God’s not going to use at some point in your life. Our steps are ordered by the Lord. Many times he will make us a bit uncomfortable before we step into a new season

VISION – are we ready?

• Peter Milne- tribe of headhunters in the New Hebrides islands, in the south Pacific, off Australia’s coast
• It all started with a plow but it’s going to end on a mountain. Perhaps your marriage is going through it right now, it’s all starting with the plow, but it’s going to end with “look what the Lord has done.” Maybe you got a report from the doctors that wasn’t favorable, but it’s going to end with the report, “look what God has done.” It started off with a plow but it’s about to end with the mantle. It’s time to kill the cow and burn the plow
• if you are brave enough to say goodbye, God will greet you with a new hello

we are starting like that what you just said a new series about Elijah and so I’ve enjoyed last couple weeks getting to know Elijah whole lot better and some of the things that I’ve seen my wife is that he’s pretty much the exact opposite of Elijah so in English Elijah and Elisha sound so familiar other languages they’re not the same at all but in English it isn’t it’s easy to confuse the two so Elijah he’s the one that comes first and Elijah was a great prophet and remembered you know when he appeared with Jesus was Transfiguration things like that and Elijah even though he did more and had a whole different attitude than Elijah Elijah isn’t the one that remembered other there’s plenty we can learn a lot from Elijah Elijah I like Elijah was a very friendly guy he’s the one that would go out into the community talk to people
about the poor he was a man of Peace he always try to create peace or when there was war we all tried to help people find food Elijah the first one he wasn’t like that Elijah first he stayed hidden live far away came out whenever got told him to go out and yell at the people about what they’re all doing has a need to repent not Elijah Elijah’s the nice guy interesting Lee I don’t know what I don’t think there is anything to make of this but it was interesting enough for me to think about it and that there’s a lot of sevens in Elijah’s story there are seven objects that he uses in his miracles there are seven cities that are named there are seven people that he addresses there are it is so there’s one more stop but there’s a lot of around and
remember she might not but when Elijah started his ministry Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind caused by a chariot The Chariot of fire and the promise was if you are here Elijah telling Elijah if you are here when I am taking up as my successor then you can have double portion of my spirit and so it was a mantle kind of like a robe if you will some kind of uniform idea to it and Elijah saw that and he received at that double portion and interesting Elijah has twice as many miracles as Elijah does Elijah has seven Elijah 14 years we come into the story of Elijah
and this today it’s the beginning of his ministry as a protege if you will maybe not but certainly a servant of Elijah and he was to be like a servant for a quite a long time until the day comes when Elijah goes up to heaven he continues but this is the moment this is the day with Elijah is invited to be a part of these profits and I’m how these things go calling out now when I was a kid I went to grow up a us as I went to a really nice but we lived in the capital so I can go to an embassy school and it was very expensive college and everything went really well as a great place but the kids there would rank you on income I had to pay how much money your parents had and there are a lot of a very wealthy business people there they’re a lot of diplomats they’re always did well
and I was the son of missionaries missionaries make very little money I think their salary at that sounds like six hundred bucks a month I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but back then it was not a lot either it never was any but that’s kind of where we lived at what you look like you you know your parents are in 6 months when you go to school with show me wealthy people you get marginalize pretty quickly and so when do the things that got into my little site that I since we’ve seen little bit more clarity was I always wanted to be one of those that made the money one of those that was a little higher up the social ladder and have any aspirations of him to lie in it I don’t have that personality but I did want to be a whole lot higher I just want to be a lot better with my kids I want to be more generous than other people who might have been in the same situation and so when I came back I went to college and I studied business and finance
was just dead set this is where I’m going to go well the church I went to a better part of a quite a while had this lady and it was really nice lady name was Joan and Joan was insanely wealthy maybe not by today’s standards but to my standards and what I was familiar with yeah she got she had a chain of nursing homes and I’m going to guess with the stuff that she bought for herself there’s very little left for Grandpa if so I would like to think that she was generous with their page but I don’t know but regardless I Joan had just a lot of stuff and houses in all the European trips and all that goes with it and on her hand on every finger she had rings diamond rings I’m going to guess if I 20 carats of rings of diamonds on her hand and I grew up Brazil has lots of diamonds it sounds very aware of that little world and one time I was sitting by her
I was looking at a ring then she saw me looking at her rings and she said to me she said Greg when I was a little girl God called me to be a missionary
and I wanted to be a missionary but I married somebody who wanted to be in business and I never got the opportunity and I’ve regretted it every day of my life and I I was still looking at the diamonds right try to counter it up and then she gets her hand she puts him over that she was don’t make the same mistake I did it’s not worth it I know you think it is but it’s not worth it Greg follow Jesus and didn’t understand the world or something you know didn’t really get it but I don’t know she really did but it just obviously never got out of my mind did it I remember that so it’s over the years I’ve had that when I was getting ready to graduate from college I was all set to go into a management program for Bank of America now so excited and everything is going great and then they took us to a conference where there
talk to us about how great it is to be in Bank of America and what they shared was what a fantastic retirement program they had and I had no expectation of living that old so I never seen that and I went back to college I thought man just what I’m going to do and so I began asking myself what is it that I would be able to do in order to to be happy what would be fulfilling in my life and I came up with nothing and then I went to God and I just felt there wasn’t a little teeny prayer Chapel thing and I just poured out my heart to God and what came to mind were missionaries all the missionaries that I’d known as I grew up in that environment and yeah they’re all one broke more than the other but my gosh were they happy they were so fulfill that such great sense of humor and you didn’t know and I think you know that’s where I want to be like I want to be like someone and that was the moment
is there going to Bank of America I went to the Nazarene seminary and I’ll tell you we like things we like things that give us an identity we like things that help us feel that we’ve achieved something fulfilled something we have lots of things we we grow very dear to those things and we’re going to read the passage about Elijah Elijah could have inherited his father’s Fortune is father’s very wealthy and very little bit before that and he was all set for that kind of a life but he also had a moment where everything changed
1st Kings chapter 19 I will just read 19 through 21 so Elijah went from there and found Elijah son of shaft that he was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen and he himself was driving the 12 pair Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him Elijah then left an auction and ran after Elijah let me kiss my father and mother goodbye he said and then I will come with you go back Elijah replied what have I done to you so Elijah left him and went back he took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them he burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people and they ate then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant
so you can see how what a nice guy this is right off the bat he wants to say goodbye to his parents and then he throws a face for everybody Slaughter’s The Oxen Cooks it and I’m sure it was a momentous moment for him personally having to make that change from where he was to what he is now going to be and what a what a transition that was what an insane transition that was not too different from the transmission that God asks you and me to set ourselves out on the path there’s a lot of stories in the Bible where God interests people in their daily lives and ask them to follow him and it’s always seems to be while they are busy in their lives doing something you have Moses he’s just watching the Sheep God calls him you have David little kid thought I’m not going to get anything my life is over God calls him out of that you have
Maya who is serving the king in Exile when all the sudden God calls him out of that and return to Jerusalem you have Peter who was a fisherman called him out of that Matthew was a tax collector called him out of that until God calls us maybe in the most unexpected times but what I saw when I read that was that God doesn’t wait till we feel ready nobody ever feels ready to follow God that’s never part of it the only thing that God asks us to do is to do what he’s asking us to do the stuff out in the follow him it doesn’t have anything to do with our other people want to like me is this you know is this do I score well as a Christian on my test that I might take don’t have such a test but these guys are things no it’s all about how fast can you say yes to God is basically what it is Elijah in this situation
I said yes very quickly he didn’t say hey you know how can I have some time to think it over can I talk to some people can I try to go you know the smooth things out get ready for this trailer it’s too bad he wasn’t there at all he was already said yeah I’ll come with you let me say goodbye let me cook them a last meal with my stuff to say a strong line and go and follow you Elijah let me do that okay and he went and he did that it was already in his heart it was already in his heart that he was going to say yes to a never got asked him to do and he I think was just waiting God in any situation I’m ready to follow you I say yes
well the next thing that we see is not only she ready to to go but he’s also ready to change and I like this last verse for that it’s let me
then he wrecks 21 then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant they sent out to follow Elijah and became a servant well I would think that Elijah probably had a position of prominence on there on the farm they’re in the family business but boy no more it’s hard to go for a position where you’re telling people what to do to a spot where one guy who’s very strange is not telling you what to do it’s not something I would logically do but he found himself in that situation and he said okay this is what I have to do I got to do with this guy says whatever this guy orders me to do according to his will yeah that’s what I’m going to do whatever he says that’s I want to take care of these things I am going to be subservient to his orders is orders
I want to give the very best part of me
to him I’m going to I’m going to let him profit benefit from the best person that I can be it’s all going to go to Elijah that was his mind to that was his friend nowhere in there do we see anything where Elijah is saying what about me don’t I need to secure my future what about me aren’t I just as intelligent as Elijah is in so many things what about me don’t you never see that with Elijah he understood his place he understood where it happened he’s understood what was expected of him now I’ve got really bad news for you guys that’s exactly what every Christian is called to do every single one of us is to submit Our Lives to God’s orders every single one of us has to come under the the will of of Jesus every single one of us has to give our very best to the father to God
and how that plays out is serving the people around us that really have that servant mentality I seen a lot of people come to Jesus and you know what they don’t have that servant mentality and that’s a lot of what determines if you’re going to really survive as a Christian or not how willing are you to be a servant to people how willing are you to say you know what these things don’t matter to me I’ve made up my mind I want to follow Jesus that’s a lot of it a whole lot of it
to be able to say Okay God my life is in your hands and I’m going to let you set the order and let you set the pace and let you tell me what I’m going to be dealing with
and that’s a lot of I think sometimes we’d like to guess it’s just easier isn’t it if we had something obvious like okay this is your job now but God has completely different job but a lot of times it’s not about changing our geographic location is not even about changing a vocation a lot of times it’s about changing our heart our mindset in the same place which I think might even be more challenging than what Elijah went through I want you to stay here I want you to be in this situation but I want you to have a completely different mindset I want you to have a new identity now no longer are you chasing the things that you would like to have or things that you feel what would make your life meaningful and important but now you are only asking God what can I do to please you. What are you looking for me to do what would make your kingdom better what it what
play in that and that’s the mindset of Christians now are we good at that not always be good under our own strength and just like Elijah needed God’s holy spirit to empower him so do we need the Holy Spirit to empower us to live according to the identity that he has given us and it’s a sinking of the Holy Spirit and his in Philly on a daily basis at the very least it’s it’s dedicating this much time of my life I am going to give this to God so he can speak to me so that he knows that I that he has my attention
sometimes we become precious we just go off her own way and we saw this one going to do now well that’s not being a Christian being a Christian is coming before the Lord every single day if not every minute of it good what is it what am I supposed to react how am I supposed to do this and living in that attitude of repentance because we feel we come up short and we do but God is full of Mercy that is full of Mercy is always faithful is always good Alexis and brings us up like Alexis and brings us then that’s what he does and the third thing I think that we need to be ready for not only to go not only did she change our Identity or to change what we’re going to do but I think the third one is we have to be ready for the season that God has for us
I doubt that this was Elijah’s first attempt to follow God but I do I just wondered think that was probably he had a good success rate of whatever God asks him to do he probably did it sometimes we get in two spots of our lives and seasons in phases right and we is it sits we wonder if there is a guy we were wondering if Amaya Target of God Zaire and I am I did I do something wrong when not at all would not at all God is merely taking you through a season of your life and he’s asking you giving you a test if you will will you be faithful with to me as we go through this will you abandon me what you accuse me of a man telling you what will you create more more Gods more items for yourself more host that have nothing to do with me what do you want to do during the season and that’s what God
what are you going to do in this season are you going to stay close to me and when God is getting ready to shift us into a new season into something bigger into something very different he doesn’t throw a party in the season that were in a lot of times it hurts lot of times it gets really hard and wow it is getting hard we have to remember that God is hard at work bring about his purpose bring about his meaning and our job is to trust him in all the work that he is doing and to say Okay God things aren’t getting easier but you know sometimes
and I don’t know this might be true of somebody certainly certainly true of me unless God calls causes you just enough paint you’re not moving you’re not move you’re going to hold on to that plow this is long as you can you keep thinking or I can make this better I can put a red bow on my plow wouldn’t that be nice I can get a new art studio I could go off yeah I can make this it’s going to be okay it’s going to be okay but sometimes when God wants to take us to a new season it just plain hurts and wife has we don’t understand it but looking back we are so grateful and we say I never would have moved if you had moved me and I would not have been able to move unless you did what you did thank you very much know that sometimes you’re looking back years even perhaps but is still damn I said that we need to have that God is faithful and that God is good and he is always with us and takes care of everybody
I came across a fascinating story about a group of people that’s about two hundred years ago there were call of the one-way missionaries do a missionary gospel the word of God to a another country another culture and today we’re so on top of each other right you don’t even know if you’re you’re talking to somebody playing your video games who lives here or lives in Singapore Sri Lanka you just don’t know but the world hasn’t always been like that I used to be pretty divided and so missionaries for hundreds of years they would pick everything up and then I would move now these repairs were called one-way missionaries because they had no intention of ever coming home one of those missionaries was a guy named aw me and me only he was in a church service when he heard a missionary report a terrible mission report about the
series that had gone to the islands of just just over by Australia and and on that island were Headhunters and the report was every missionary that goes to the red islands is killed
he’s a who would want to go there that wouldn’t be good but you know what he couldn’t stop thinking about you brother Highlands and the Headhunters is that what I’m supposed to do I’m supposed to go to the red eyelids and get my head cut off why would I ever do to help when God be so much better with me living here in London than I do so much more can I raise so much more money for got good night witness to two other people whole lot better than I didn’t always feel like it and I know what language they speak like that on my mantle is that where I’m going you got to be kidding God
you know what it’s hard following God it really is the one we missionaries did something very interesting they would take their belongings but they didn’t use a suitcase to move their belongings they took a coffin and they would fill the coffin up with their belongings and it was to remind them that they are one-way missionaries are here to do the will of God they’re here to fulfill God’s purpose no matter what and that coffin is their house on the trip remaining the daily I’ve died to Christ I have died to myself and I live for Christ I’ve already died by the Headhunters can’t do anything to me that I haven’t already done the Headhunters would leave me in The Jerk God Will Raise Me Up
and off he went to bed islands and there’s a whole lot of record about what happened to a w n e in the early days of his ministry there but what we do know is that they didn’t kill him for some reason let him live and he’s lived there for another 35 years without ever coming back to his home they continue to minister and when he died of natural causes they buried him in the middle of the village and then they put a monument that is still need to go there and see it today they want to last forever and it says
when he came
there was only Darkness
when he left there was only like
I think about that that’s exactly what Jesus Does
he changes the darkness to light and we are called to work in that world not ourselves if we can’t turn water into wine we can’t change a human heart but God can and God calls us to participate in what he was doing in the world for the Salvation of the world
I spent a lot of time plowing wondering is this all that there is is anything get better than this
I know people are plowing through a marriage and just going and they’re wondering does anything happen with this does anything get better with this
the story of Elijah Elijah is yes it does there’s a moment where God breaks in and where God redeems the situation and where you change from talking about plowing the field to look what God has done for me
maybe somebody is going to have gotten a a bad diagnosis from a doctor and it’s really got them nervous that’s plowing the field you’re going to Rock Springs aren’t using the ground is very hard and it’s scary is it always going to be scary at all
and he says I’m going to redeem these moments I’m going to help you see how I’ve been working all this time in your life
how everything you’ve done for me has been well worth it I love you I’m taking care of you I will always take care of you and you’re going to say look what God has done for me and maybe today you’re plowing away and you’re wondering what’s going to happen here is anything come from this is there any meaning or purpose to this and at some point that’s going to break into your life to read your eyes and sees the big picture what he’s doing his mantle is Rob’s going to fall on you Elijah’s and you’re going to have a portion of his spirit I hope it’s more than a double portion of his Spirit but you don’t have his spirit and that’s what changes everything that’s what changes everything
I like the idea that if you’re brave enough
how to say goodbye to different things
then you are about to say hello to the things God is bringing you
you can’t have you can’t keep the old and go with the new the old has to go and then the new will come
maybe somebody here today is just found that field and trying to make that a pretty or plow trying to make it better for the future but what you really need is for that presence of God to come up I put his Spirit on you and to change everything
today we are going to follow this with the song
but why you to look at the lyrics trailer for single speaks lyrics and faith and ask God if he wants to give you his Spirit please do
the Lord has started a work it probably so many here today ask God God finish the work in me finish your work in me finish your work in me help me to live for a new reason help me to follow you with with a new priority with the new sense of importance and I’d invite you after the end of the service the music going to keep playing you can linger in here you can just linger and if the Holy Spirit wants to speak to you give him that opportunity to do just that and let God move into your heart and the way that he designed the way he wants you to do all you’re saying is if you want your spirit to come on me your I am and if it does I will follow you to where you are leaving let us bring a father thank you for this day that you’ve given us to be here in your presence of Joyful experience this is to be among fellow Believers were looking to you
father with knowledge that we would not be here talkin about your salvation had it not been for people who are all in their own way of one way missionary traveling with her their casket father we thank you for them but at the same time we don’t know how many more Generations we’re going to linger on this Earth the Lord I pray that we would be facing Our Generation that we would have our casket already set and then we would have our mind already set it’s going to be one way with Jesus I’m going to live serving him only father I pray that you would anoint your spirit one who you have desired to bring to you yourself or speak to them as they make themselves available to you in the name of Jesus Amen

PROBLEM – the need for God

• What is our situation?
• All we need to do is… science, archeology, Bibles, tech
• Nothing short of a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God is adequate to deal with our situation

GOD – God wants you to know his love

• Ephesians 3:16-19  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
• The word “revival”means “to bring back to life, a restoration, rejuvenation, or renewal of interest after spiritual neglect. Many beginnings

APPLICATION – God wants you to be filled with his presence + power

• Definition: extraordinary, repentance, presence, obedience, individual and corporate, evangelism
• What did Noah have to do with drawing the animals to the ark? A vision of people being drawn into the Ark and not animals. The Ark is Jesus, our safety. If we are being drawn into the Ark that means sudden and massive judgment is coming on the earth. Please don’t ignore His drawing that you may find safety and refuge in the Ark (presence) of the Lord. Time is standing still for a great harvest!
• Isaiah 55:6-7  Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
• A time is coming when God may not be easily found. No one knows how much time he or she may have left.

VISION – get ready for what God is going to do

• After Acts 2 – miracles and signs were common, the church grew, persecution rose and the Holy Spirit moved in a whole new dimension! We need to get  ready for what’s next!

I don’t know if you guys if you guys have access to a social media thread we live in a strange day don’t worry where everybody gets news that they like or somebody thinks or an algorithm thinks you like and so I’ve noticed that all I’ll be excited about something or tell somebody else and now I know never heard about that and here I thought it was the biggest thing I thought it was all over with it if you guys had that experience kind of strange this is very surreal you know it makes me long for the days of ABC CBS and NBC where’d you know you just have those three Talking Heads and pretty much just gave the same story and story life interest story that was pretty much it is how we got our news in this country but now everything’s different
they want me to take is going on but I don’t know what to tell you is going on what is happening spiritually in a little town in Kentucky called Wilmore Kentucky Wilmore Kentucky is well-known for people who are in the Holiness movement in the church a long time it has been a started I don’t know 150 or sixty years ago perhaps that’s just a wild guess off top my head you could Google it and find out and figure I’m totally wrong but it’s been around a long time back my my grandparents both graduated from Asbury College that’s the name of the college is also a cemetery there but they’re in Wilmore Kentucky to Asbury College there has been in the past a series of a spiritual events that have been unprecedented the first one happened in 1950 and it was just
is always the same as just a normal church service and then after the church service some people linger and then they couldn’t leave and then some other people came in and they prayed and I sang and then some more people came in and it’s the term that they give it an English is a Revival or an Awakening and that’s something that people don’t do is something God doesn’t completely on explicable these things arise from time to time sometimes once every hundred years sometimes once every fifty years or so just just bits and pieces of them and it’s early 1950 was one of them well there was a s s Berry College Wilmore Kentucky in 1970 and this is a very strong one also and it when when I say that it was something that only God can do there
are a lot of people my age group that remember that I wasn’t quite old enough to be aware of it was happening but over my lifetime I’ve met people who refer to that I had gone by there in the months after or heard about it or whatever it was our lives were certainly touched but it’s not only there is something that spreads spreads to other colleges that spreads even if the church is it different communities and it’s just a Marvel just a Marvel Christians don’t forget these moments they don’t forget his this life is hard we struggle it just seems like the world just keeps taking advantage or gain Advantage it’s very strange to see what we pray for what we preach about actually taking place so when it does even over two thousand years of history now. You can pretty much go to all the Revival’s now study them they got books and people talk about them
you can go there to see what happens when God breaks in in a way that only God could ever do would not be manipulated any other one is as genuine as it yet and it just absolutely changes their lives when they experienced this the one going on right now and when will Kentucky I believe it’s been about a week perhaps so you might know more than that but also just yesterday I had to Wilmore Kentucky is a little Podunk town you don’t really want to go there for anything there’s nothing going on there except this week 25,000 people were there yesterday they can all Gather in the auditorium if they have there I think. It’s normally C’s 1500 so what they do is gather close by and look at it and every single person that goes just talks about how the presence of God is there
they said that there was a line to go into the auditorium way for people to leave so you can go in a mile-long a mile-long of Miles along with it waiting to go into this place and there’s just beautiful things happening around there were Gods just touching people’s lives and Powerful ways that’s going on right now that really excites me because I feel that we live in a horrible time or situation as Christians as Believers in God is just under so much I want to say threat that it sounds like no we’re going to suffer like people do around the world and we certainly don’t do that but it’s certainly the nicest wagons FIB certainly undermined
you don’t have to say that the worst thing that can happen in a marriage is for one of the spouses to develop contempt for the other that as soon as you develop a contempt for the other just destroy the relationship there’s really no coming back from that and I’m sure that’s how I feel that Christianity the Bible is felt in America this morning by such a large portion of population a pure contempt
Martin and I know I’ve lived a lot longer than a few but my gosh it was always an underlying honor an underlying respect for God’s word and you might disagree you might go live your own life but you still knew that there was something sacred about God’s word and you knew that it was bigger than what your life is but we’re hearing constantly stays how the Bible is evil how the Bible destroys communities how the Bible hurts people what planet did I land on it’s just a strange stuff but that’s the best I would use the word I would say they’ve developed a terrible for God’s word I think the pandemic accelerated it in many ways and people now that’s our reservations a couple days ago
a big survey about how people are developing what we call new theology theology is the study of God and so it’s man’s attempt to understand who God is so all of us have a Theology of Our Lives how we understand God to be and now there’s a new theology several men to worship alone it’s okay for me to spend the time with my family that I would have spent with God and that that is right with God and people are actually changed their mindsets to embrace this ideology or this false theology we live and he’s our numbers and I think the number they gave a 63% of Americans feel this way there’s so many other ones are with this is the way things are developing around
this is what is happening in the midst of all this and I’m so grateful that this revival is happening is Awakening I hope it lasts I hope it goes more I would spread so I’m watching maybe you’ll be watching but honestly I need it I need it our nation needs that our neighborhood needs that our families need our children needed our parents needed because it is parked it is hard it is struggle out there we just need I just a complete coming of the holy spirit is now for more and do our best right we do our best we feel that God is leading and helping us but we do things we get excited about when when we hear about a scientist that the scientists actually believes in a a designer original mover if you will we get
says that there is a God right we have so excited about that who else gets excited about that only church people nobody else nobody really cares all Gators another wacko scientist too bad you fell off the edge right they don’t care about that just you know that his stories always said oh no that’s been never be true and then this archaeological fact versus and artifactory merges and then all the sudden it proves it again the Bible is true about what you and history says there is no proof and in fact it was just under the sand a little bit there was poop after all along and we can trust God’s word we can trust one we get so excited
it’s just us right nobody else it’s just us
I’m continually amazed at how many bibles we have all the Bibles basically say the exact same thing that I don’t believe that one translation translation translation to the original Bree is is the most original with a row with their hands but certainly you know what dates back to as early as we can get to those that up it’s a it’s a decent body but you a entrepreneur
we just think with that many bibles in that that’s friendly of an approach and that way to speak to so many people haven’t really made a difference in our country I like it but I’m a Christian I don’t know that it’s really all of a sudden set the world on fire because we’ve now made that God’s word so intelligible in English so so so Street speaking it is in our cities and in our lives that our attempts to do
what we want to see happen what we see God saying he’s going to do and it doesn’t and the truth is it’s never going to we’re never going to have that kind of ability that kind of space underneath it on some level it’s still our effort what we do need what will make the change is what we often refer to as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit into our hearts and overwhelming presence of God in our lives we read about these moments in the Bible we read about these moments in our history and inside of us we desire for these moments to happen many many times it happened on an individual scale or maybe even a church scale
but not in a massive way like we want to see like we really need to see I want to read to you from Ephesians chapter 3 verses 16 through 19 this is a small section where or Paul basically describes a vision of what this would look like it’s his prayer for the people there he says I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ May dwell in your hearts through faith and I pray that you be rooted and established in love may have power together with all the Lord’s people to grasp how wide and long and how is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you made me feel to the measure of all the fullness of God
that’s what we want that’s what we want to see right there look how many times it repeats the word power power is it was that is that like a superpower no it’s not it’s a power to separate yourself from the things of this world because the thing just won’t have a way of grabbing you by the ankles and just really holding you down it’s a power that they can transfer everything the atmosphere around you they can just make it so clear that God is here that God is present right here is that feeling was the feeling of that it is a feeling that you are loved and the feeling is that you never want to leave God’s presents you can actually it is such a good for such a reassuring to the very core of who you are as a as a human being to very core core core of your soul that this is where you belong to this is the environment that you were made for his with God who has a nun and
deep love for you is is it possible to scribes it here in measurable way is right I didn’t matter that God has for that that’s where you want to go that’s what we want to see I want we talk about Revival talk about an Awakening what is it that were exactly talking about here at the very core of the meaning of it is is to be made alive again brought back to life think of a somebody who drowns in a swimming pool and then you got the Lifeguard he goes to polls you out does mouth-to-mouth pumps your stomach tighten your stomach right that’s that’s for pills he got oxygen running through your veins again see you were revived you were dead basically dead and somebody had intervened you’d still be dead but God comes
in that same way that us who are dead that’s where I lost God comes in a way nobody else can and he revives us again makes us knew another way to think of it is the word restoration what is a restoration restoration if something’s been restored like an old house what does that mean at one time it was just about to fall over in on captain of in uncared for and then somebody goes in and brings it back to life makes it livable again makes it even better than it was when it was first built that’s what we mean by restoration that’s what God does because for many of us that is a pretty decent description of Our Lives that we have fallen apart because of perhaps our own neglect to to nurture the life experience that God gives us and we played games and contained it in the end result is that our lives show very clearly to us and perhaps to others sometimes not but
don’t lie to us that our lives have not been affected by God their lives and have been changed by God that our lives are not touched by God our lives are very ordinary and we find ourselves living at the same pay student in the same Rhythm that everybody else does when God all along is sitting there saying I can pour new life until I can revive you I can restore you another thing is he’s read the news 3:00 news the same idea isn’t it you got an old jalopy the things rusted things all broken apart and all the hoses are worn out and crafts what is somebody who comes in and I didn’t make it like new again that’s how God does it with you cuz a lot of us are worn out that the world is taking its toll on toll on us that we have tried so hard and stale just repeatedly so many times that is just not going to work anymore it’s just not going to work anymore
this isn’t a thing that just happens once when God revives us it’s a repeated Revival is a repeated in filling of us of his spirit is something that happens over and over because we need it because we are frail because we are sent for our heart is not right with God and it doesn’t take very long before we fall down again
we might even be running with God running so fast and then we trip over that old sin and we just can’t get rid of and we fall first face-first into the mud and there we are and many times will get back up start running again it’s not very long for they won’t send trips us again face-first in the mud we get back up start running again before you start saying I’m tired of tripping I don’t like falling face-first into this mud
I’m going to rest here a little bit until that’s in goes away I’m going to just make my home here I’m going to try to be more comfortable in this environment right here and so many of us live
how we where we fell and we tell God God help me in this moment we live right here and got sent home no oh no I’m not about you living in a mud now I want you to get off again I want you to get up let me help you up and then we kind of push. Away no no I’m going to live right here and then we take our eyes off of God and we put it on everybody else just to find out there’s a lot of people in this mud and they’re there with us and we like okay see if she is in the mud he’s in the mud I’m in the mood to be after all that’s where you still are living in that mud hopeless helpless to ever get out of it because your only hope is God is the only one in, and we talked about this
who sang about the power that can break off every shade the power that can empty out the grave the resurrection power isn’t that the level of power that we need to break the chains of sin around us off of us isn’t it that don’t you acknowledge that the sin is holding you down and such a powerful way that there is no way you could shake this off it just stays there it’s ridiculous to think are we get rid of this but what is God’s power to God’s power says hey I’m here to do that if you would step into the Battle of your life if you would make this the purpose of your life is your relationship with me I will give you power to overcome these things that right now are killing you right now they’re stuffing your face deep into the mud or you just about to suffocate I will free you from that and if you would reveal that to us and we would agree with God that yes you are able to do that you can’t do that at
I receive it and I accept it and Lord I’m going to live by your power in me not in the wrong be running with you to where you are so I can be in your presence and enjoy that they just isn’t comfortable anywhere in this world that I can only have with you and it’s a love not only for this moment but for all of eternity
that’s what God wants to do in your heart in mind he wants to revive us he wants to restore us he wants to renew us he wants to make us again clean in His image with you that’s where guy goes these least this moment that God looks when God does something but God does something it’s absolutely extraordinary absolutely extraordinary you would be without words to describe to somebody what has happened in your life there are no words because your words describe what you do we lack the vocabulary to describe God does and what has happened to you is only what God does and we just say
like I did something just for normal with me he just changed your eye I can’t even describe it I just can’t describe it
it’s God’s presents in a way that you never known before it’s not that you have to think about God God’s their guys there in your thought that’s there in your mind already packed every thought you have is about God and you begin to love God’s present because that’s where you get your life that’s what we’re talking about a presence of God unlike any other thing is just his natural presence with us you know what else you find yourself doing repenting repenting repenting
a lot of repenting because once you begin to see the dirt the sin that is in your life you get rid of a little bit and you see there’s a whole lot more where that came from
you were trying to clean your fridge out and you said okay I got to clean this this and this and this and then you get rid of this this this and this and you look in the fridge it again and there’s there’s that that that that and you get rid of that and then there’s some more over here so clean right go buy a new fridge I guess but that’s how it is that’s the repenting it’s a life is a life of sweetness with Jesus it’s not a negative thing it’s not a shameful thing it’s not a regretful thing it said they joyful thing because God has shown you the sin in your life is made it to you and you can identify it now and repent unlike before you just live with it and never knew how bad it was now you do and God gives you away and he times things he doesn’t tell you to clean out the whole thing all at once but over time as you mature God helps you get deeper and deeper and deeper repentance a wonderful thing and why do we repent so that we can live in obedience to
to live in obedience to God I would say most people tell you I can live in obedience to God
almost all the time
yeah I live in obedience to God just a lot I do a lot nobody needs to God what are you saying we have to go. And I know it and I hate it and I wish it wasn’t there cuz that’s the one thing that’s stopping everything else it’s it’s the cork its history and its what stops all the flow of God cuz when God comes slowly through your life he stops there and he said what’s up with this can’t do anything about that I was born with that and it’s just there but if you just move to the left a little bit you can go ride around and God and there’s so much more to bless me with over here so let’s not look at this only works in my own head it never works with God you’ve got to come to complete obedience with God you got to surrender all those things
not again not in your own power what was that that power that God has to break the chains of the other that sing power but also with your own determination to say is going to be the fight of my life it’s only 25 if I ever do anything on this Earth it’s going to be for God to help me get over this thing I’d get over the spout of Disobedience got you can count on me there that is music that there’s a winning streak that you’re going to see right there when you come to this be serious with it instead of discounting it
it not only happens in an individual which it does which is actually one of them but this also happens in a church in a group of people Gathering that God can come into a group of people and just pour out his spirit is such a powerful way that people walking by would say all what is going on over there they don’t even know why but there’s something that pulls them into what God is doing here it can happen in a church can happen here it can happen what God is doing what God is is is ringing these things about
I heard an interesting metaphor and it was a story about a guy who was thinking about Noah’s Ark strangely enough and the question was how did Noah get all of the animals into the ark right books about all the ways he could have gotten animals into the ark
but the Bible says that no I did not get all the animals into the dark bark God brought the animals into the ark Noah built the ark and anyways and God went out and gather the animals around the world and brought them in to by to write male and female into the ark to save them
and if we just moved out a little bit over to a deeper understanding that perhaps the ark is Jesus
Jesus is doing he is going out himself and calling people to himself and calling out for you to come to him you’re not the one going out there’s no church on their way out to the rescue you it’s only God calling you to himself is calling you to his art his boat is calling you to his security is calling you into his presence and you don’t even know why you’re going you just know that this is what I got to do I know that God is calling me that is bringing me to him I am here for that
but there’s a more cynical side to the arc to isn’t there because when God was calling the animals when God was calling Noah and his family is because it was to be a sudden judgement
and today if God is calling us to his present if God is calling us to be safe with him it’s because there’s also a sudden judgement and I don’t know what the Judgment can be described by or what it’s going to look like
maybe it’s the day of the Lord when God returns when Jesus returns as is but I’m going to prom so the church has waited for forever for and someday it will arrive every day comes every day to learn that the hard way every day comes I might seem like it’s a long ways away it’s not every day comes when Jesus said I’m coming back that day will come we could also be when your life is over you can just be a brain hemorrhage I could be an accident that you who knows that is your day of judgment that is a sudden judgment and then there’s a steel where I waited too long I waited too long
Isaiah 55:6 7 seek the Lord while he may be found seek the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake that says let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts let them turn to the Lord and He will have mercy on them and to our God for he will freely pardon for he will freely pardon
that’s the image that we have today is that God is calling us why to save us he save Noah and that group of animals he calls us and effort to save us to bring us to himself to be safe and secure to be in his presence it’s possible to resist that it’s possible to turn the other way go with the crowd do with the party go where you’re being invited but God calls us to be with him and it’s few few people will go that would narrow way right Jesus talk about the Broad Street very wise Reagan Highway 212 Lane Highway let’s go down there but God is calling us onto a very thorny uncomfortable path as very few that will turn and walk that way and that’s the opportunity we have this opportunity that God has called us to in our own life first to ask ourselves
am I being the person that God is calling me to be a might be in my taking this as seriously as I need to am I recognized that Jesus is not a belief that Jesus is not an idea and ideology Jesus a real person the Jesus God incarnate who live just like you and me that you would have seen Jesus was like you see anybody and then that person would have been executed a would have come back to life that significant that means something what does that change in your life that’s the reality of how it is
it should change a lot
after Jesus and it back into heaven after his resurrection did he do he sent the Holy Spirit we talked about that on the day of Pentecost and acts right the Holy Spirit comes and he feels everybody’s heart with his presence and his love he fills them with power why because right after during the day of Pentecost the persecution began the persecutions began and the difficulties of living began
but they didn’t go into those times after the feeling on the Holy Spirit the way they went into the filling of a holy spirit they left with power a power tool of God apart to recognize God’s power to listen to God and power to let God change their lives and power to love God and love others that’s what God’s calling you and me too I don’t know if the Revival is happening and you know back East somewhere in the midwest I don’t know that it’s going to reach us like that but I do know this
I want to be ready
I don’t care if it comes or doesn’t I want to be ready so that if it did come I would be here but God chooses not to bring this massive movement and he’s not calling everybody to his presence around me he’s calling me he’s calling you and he still you have to answer
will you go to work out is calling you we’ve come to him has guys calling me father
we just stand here and all of what you are doing. You’ve done over history and lore things are completely out of our control and honestly the only thing we can do is sit and wait
but in our waiting father maybe not wait and send maybe we wait with a a spirit of expectation that we wait with Desiring your presents to be with us to wait with a heart of repentance may we wait with a a commitment to obedience to you may we wait father individually and may we wake corporately for what you want to do the change you want to bring about
my father asked for your noise I pray honor if you are taking prayer request I pray for that you would bring a Revival and Awakening in our neighborhood and our city this part of the country or I pray that you would do it here’s what I would I just humbly admitted even be in this building or if you would and she would bring them out here will that you bring about your power and let it begin here let us be Witnesses what happened in 2023 let it be us but Lord regardless find us committed to you renewed commitment to you and living the life that you live when you have the holy spirit inside of you in the name of Jesus we pray amen